Claes Oldenburg: The Street and The Store

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Street Chick (Hanging)
Date: 1960
Medium: Burlap, muslin, cardboard, wood, string, painted with casein
Dimensions: 10' x 38" x 15" (304.8 x 96.5 x 38.1 cm)
Credit Line: Museum Ludwig Cologne / Peter und Irene Ludwig Stiftung

Claes Oldenburg. Street Chick (Hanging). 1960

Burlap, muslin, cardboard, wood, string, painted with casein
Museum Ludwig Cologne / Peter und Irene Ludwig Stiftung Audio courtesy of Acoustiguide

GLENN LOWRY: Oldenburg’s unorthodox manner of displaying his work in The Street exhibitions anticipated what we now know as installation art.

CLAES OLDENBURG: The figures were suspended from the ceiling, which if you looked at a street scene, and instead of having the people attached to the ground, you had them floating, that’s the effect that you had. And that also made it possible for them to move slightly and change positions. So it was a kind of imitation of life.